Not a happy bunny

[littleredrooster]

Not long been back from a holiday in Scotchland - 1800 miles, marvellous weather, lovely people (as always) - went to wash the bike and made the grim discovery.

Oil underneath the FD box and all around the seal. Further investigation reveals about 2-3mm play in the bearing. FD looks to be goosed, then.

The scary thing is that the last ride was coming back from Scotland, two-up and fully laden at the usual 'progressive' speeds. Bearing failure under those circumstances does not bear thinking about.

Phoned the dealer this morning and took the bike in (gently) for them to look at asap, but the workshop is extremely busy and I may be waiting for a while.

Bike is ONE MONTH out of warranty. Dealer is going to try for a goodwill claim after I had a little mutter about 'merchantable quality' and 'premium brand product', let's hope they succeed! I wait with baited breath......

2008GS, 16500 miles (-ish)

 

[Pukmeister]

I just had a new FD due to bearing failure and also corrosion on my 58 plate GSA at 9800 miles.

 

[red1]

I know there are a lot of GS/GSA's out there and bad news travels faster than good news ... but this seems to be cropping up on a daily basis

This is a major component not in the same league as the EWS/FPR.

Shouldn't be happening to an "Unstoppable".

It's just not right even at 30-40K. I feel for the poor sods who end up paying out for poor quality manufacturing.

And please, no-one point out that it's OK, it's sorted under warranty.

 

[Nice 'n' Fat]

I can't see that a good will claim would be rejected and when agreed I would suggest that you make a small contribution towards the repair, that way you will get the full manufacturers warranty on the replaced item even if you only contributed £1.00 towards the repair

 

[Toad]

I think it's only fair that you give us the details of the dealer involved so that we can assess their performance with this issue........

Edit: Good luck BTW.......

 

[Dave The Driver]

Just had mine done under warranty 09 GSA 10,200mls and never been off road this years warranty will be tested to the full to see if it goes wrong in its second year of warranty

 

[GSmonkey]

Never quite understood why bearing failure seems to lead to a replacement bevel box being required. Can't they just be repaired? I guess if you fek the crownwheel the cost of parts and labour may be high.

 

[MattW]

Never quite understood why bearing failure seems to lead to a replacement bevel box being required. Can't they just be repaired? I guess if you fek the crownwheel the cost of parts and labour may be high.

Apparently it requires tools and skills beyond the abilities of your average dealership

 

[GSmonkey]

Fills you with confidence that doesn't it

 

[R1200GSA]

Never quite understood why bearing failure seems to lead to a replacement bevel box being required. Can't they just be repaired?

There are four crucial differential adjustments, pinion depth & bearing preload, backlash and carrier bearing preload. All of which need to be done by a suitably educated and equipped engineering shop. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay tooooooo much specialist for just any car or motorcycle workshop. Involves a lot of shimming up and checking contact patterns (how the gears come together)............. if the bearings turn to shit, the gears wont be meshing properly and can overload the gear teeth, leading to catastrophic failure. Now ya dont want that tae happen, barrelling round a corner at warp factor nine.

 

[garfield]

Bike is ONE MONTH out of warranty. Dealer is going to try for a goodwill claim after I had a little mutter about 'merchantable quality' and 'premium brand product', let's hope they succeed! I wait with baited breath......

2008GS, 16500 miles (-ish)

I've just had my rear shock fail 2,000 miles out of warranty....what can you do....it sucks but such is life....

 

[rdover]

Good luck
I have massive corrosion issues with my 2009 GSA (10k miles) and they've simply said "nope, you didn't clean it enough/properly". This includes my rear wheel!

I will rant in a more appropriate thread, however

 

[wheelnut]

There are four crucial differential adjustments, pinion depth & bearing preload, backlash and carrier bearing preload. All of which need to be done by a suitably educated and equipped engineering shop. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay tooooooo much specialist for just any car or motorcycle workshop. Involves a lot of shimming up and checking contact patterns (how the gears come together)............. if the bearings turn to shit, the gears wont be meshing properly and can overload the gear teeth, leading to catastrophic failure. Now ya dont want that tae happen, barrelling round a corner at warp factor nine.

Used to do my land rovers diffs with a feeler guage and a spanner hammer.

 

[turpin]

I've had this twice once at the 12000 service and strangely enough again at it's 24000 service

Both times replaced First under warrenty and the second as agood will.............................Third time?????????????????

John Clark was the dealer so top marks from for all their efforts

 

[elevensies]

There are four crucial differential adjustments, pinion depth & bearing preload, backlash and carrier bearing preload. All of which need to be done by a suitably educated and equipped engineering shop. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay tooooooo much specialist for just any car or motorcycle workshop. Involves a lot of shimming up and checking contact patterns (how the gears come together)............. if the bearings turn to shit, the gears wont be meshing properly and can overload the gear teeth, leading to catastrophic failure. Now ya dont want that tae happen, barrelling round a corner at warp factor nine.

totally 100% correct.

if the shimming of the bearing is not done properly, the bearing will fail,
if the bearing carrier is slightly marked during fitting, it will fail.
if bmw carry out the repair, and it fails, you can only hope they admit liability.

twice a fd bearing went on mine in 2 weeks, bmw stumped up the final 1200 quid to replace the rear end.............. their fault

shit i know, at least a chain you can see, and most places can fix it,

 

[fatty]

Just had my FD bearing replaced under warrenty by Ocean. Had some new tyres fitted on Tuesday and the lad pointed out the "play" on the bearing, the bike was in Ocean today and I asked Mark to have a look at it. He had the bearing replaced there and then. Top Marks for Mark and Ocean.
My bike is a 58 plate GSA, obviously not a very good year for the GS reading some of the posts.

 

[littleredrooster]

Update:

Had a phone call from Woolastons earlier today. Bike is fixed, no charge. Goodwill from BMW.

Well done to the dealer and to BMW for restoring my confidence in them. New GS on the way perhaps.....?

 

[Jedmeister]

..........because of all the comments here about just being out of warranty, I'm guessing I already know the answer but don't the extended warranties (or whatever they call them in years 3, 4 .... etc.) cover this sort of thing and if they don't, what's the point in buying them?

 

[littleredrooster]

..........because of all the comments here about just being out of warranty, I'm guessing I already know the answer but don't the extended warranties (or whatever they call them in years 3, 4 .... etc.) cover this sort of thing and if they don't, what's the point in buying them?

I suspect that they know that they're in the grasp of the Sale of Goods Act when the bike hasn't covered much mileage/isn't very old. SoG tends to regard 6 years as a reasonable time limit for major failures. Obviously a full BMW service history helps (or indeed, is a pre-requisite) for 'goodwill' claims. They're unlikely to pay out if the bike hasn't been near the network, IMO.